Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Monday signed a bill into law that prohibits cities and towns from banning an oil drilling practice known as hydraulic fracking, giving the state sole authority over oil and gas regulation.

Lawmakers in Texas, a state that is home to the two of the most productive U.S. shale oil fields, have been under pressure to halt an anti-fracking movement since November, when voters in the town of Denton voted to ban the oil and gas extraction technique. Residents near the 270 gas wells there had told Al Jazeera they suffered from nosebleeds and nausea that they said they believed resulted from fracking byproducts.

"This law ensures that Texas avoids a patchwork quilt of regulations that differ from region to region, differ from county to county or city to city," Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement...

Fracking was pioneered at the Barnett shale natural gas formation in north Texas where Denton is located. Most of the crude output in Texas comes from fracked wells in the Eagle Ford and Permian fields to the south and west.

Drilling operations contributed more than $12 billion to Texas state coffers in 2013 alone, accounting for about 4.5 percent of the biannual budget. The oil and gas sector made more than $400 million in political contributions statewide during the last election cycle, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

In April, scientists with real-time monitors linked a rash of small earthquakes west of Fort Worth to nearby natural gas wells and wastewater injection.

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Well, so much for the federal government being tyrannical. That's so last week. This week, your health and literally the ground you walk on are being legislated away from you by the state of Texas.

What the hell is going on in that state? Since when did it become Arkham Asylum South?

What's next, a ban on solar energy? Or so many restrictions, fees, and taxes on it that it becomes non-lucrative? Go to hell, Texas. I'm thankful for every day I don't wake up in that cesspool of stupid.

What's next, a ban on solar energy? Or so many restrictions, fees, and taxes on it that it becomes non-lucrative? Go to hell, Texas. I'm thankful for every day I don't wake up in that cesspool of stupid.

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wait, are you not from the state that brought us Jersey Shore? or is it a different state?

I'm moving to Denton in July, I guess I'll err on the side of caution and drink water from the desert in California instead of the tap water.

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Having spent many a day in Southeastern Oklahoma/Northeastern Texas and being from Nebraska, I never drank the water down there unless it came from a fountain that was filtered, or from a restaurant, which has to have theirs filtered.

Never drank the water at my grandparent's place, nor any of my relatives there. It was bad enough having that metallic tang taste to it, that this only confirms that I made the right choice.

BTW: with all of the earthquakes going on in OK due to fracking, and the fact that they now have more earthquakes occurring there than in California, I would suggest to everyone here that if you have any business that requires you to fly to Dallas, fly into Love Field, and not DFW. Why? Oil companies are fracking under DFW Airport. Yes, Under the airport.

Dasani is ok,so is Costco water, "pure life" does taste like crap along with arrowhead and a few others.

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Agreed on the Costco water.

However, I will say that in living in the desert southwest (read: Las Vegas), if there is anything I had learned relative to the water down there (since it all comes from the Colorado), I never had any water at home that didn't get thrown through a Brita filter. Water down there.. you'd swear that when you see it coming out of the tap that it looks like milk. It is that milky. So filtered, or nothing at all.

However, I will say that in living in the desert southwest (read: Las Vegas), if there is anything I had learned relative to the water down there (since it all comes from the Colorado), I never had any water at home that didn't get thrown through a Brita filter. Water down there.. you'd swear that when you see it coming out of the tap that it looks like milk. It is that milky. So filtered, or nothing at all.

But we digressed.. something about Fracking, wasn't it?

BL.

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It's really a sign of the end of the Progressive-era that we can't depend on the viability of our water system and now have to purchase filtration systems or depend on bottled water. Bottled water is massively wasteful (nothing like taking, for example, California's water and using large amounts of energy to package it into plastic bottles and ship it around the United States on a truck) and ridiculously expensive.

One thing to note is that the "milky" quality is often air that gets trapped into the system and is a sign of a leak somewhere in your home. Our family cabin pulls water from a spring and it looks like milk at first.

Michigan also pre-empts local bans on mining, drilling, etc. Blanket bans, even at a local level, are IMO a form of unconstitutional taking. Don't want drilling to occur on a piece of land? Buy it yourself, freaking cheapskate.

I looked up the national average for today and it's $2.71, so you must be living in an exorbitantly expensive area.

For me it's $2.93 down the street and that's with a Memorial Day Weekend price hike. A few weeks ago I paid $2.40. The most I've paid historically was just over $4. So, yes, it is relatively cheap.

But every area is different, so I'll accept your point. I should not have said "gas". Every news article is about the low price of oil, not gas.

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He's in California like me. I've been overseas and paid the equivalent of $6.50~ per gallon. Anything under $4 isn't too bad unless you drive a large vehicle, have a long commute, or do a lot of road trips.

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